


La Vie en Rose

by vintagemiserie



Category: Fall Out Boy
Genre: (the oc is a trohman do not fret), Alternate Universe - Victorian, Fluff, France (Country), M/M, Vampires
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-19
Updated: 2019-05-19
Packaged: 2020-03-08 01:10:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,254
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18885070
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vintagemiserie/pseuds/vintagemiserie
Summary: Patrick and Joe find and go through a box of gifts from a century prior, and Patrick reminisces over his past love.





	La Vie en Rose

Patrick knelt down at a specific tree on the perimeter of the clearing. It looked rather dead from the prolonged winter, but he suspected it would come to life after the cold spell would end; carved deep on the trunk was a heart with initials inside. “Joseph, it should be right here,” He said, thoughts of his troubled childhood filling his mind immediately. Though usually he could only reminisce on the scene with happy thoughts in mind, something in him commanded a cloud of worry and sadness to overtake him. “Good luck with the snow, I’m far too weak to help in the state I’m in.” With that, he stood up and stepped away, looking to his companion with the expectation that he’d take over.

The human, with mouth open from the slightest confusion and cheeks reddened from the cold, fixed his collar and raised his shovel. “What is it we’re looking for, again?” He asked, stepping up. As he began to dig, Patrick readied his own musket and turned to face away from him. Though no one had gotten hurt in over a month, the townsfolk still reported seeing undead animals roaming about the surrounding forests, and they had to keep careful even if it might have been a bit overly cautious. Even his aim, made entirely uncertain and shaky from how utterly cold he felt, would be better than nothing.

Besides, he thought, being a look out would give him some sense of purpose as Joe worked. It was rare when he was totally useless, but in the case that he was, he needed to at least pretend he had something to do. “We are looking for a sizeable wooden box, which should be just in front of the tree, exactly as I designated.” The vampire thought a moment more, considering that perhaps the boy’s already visible confusion was only heightened by the statement. “It was a birthday present. I was going to dig it up once the problem with my father was finished with, but… I suppose I forgot about it until recent times.”

“As in, yesterday?” Joe asked, his laugh saturating the air with breath. “I’d love to hear the story behind that.” In an instant of luck, the snow he shoveled away appeared to be less packed than it was closer to town. Patrick found himself sighing with relief before turning back to his post and tried his damnedest to concentrate on the task at hand. The muzzle of his gun taunted him, however, its erratic movement and constant lowering from where Patrick wanted it being so distracting that his plans for guarding Joe failed completely; he lowered the gun and tried to concentrate without it in his grip.

\--

It was a beautiful spring day in their special little place on the river’s edge, and Louis had earlier set up an easel, though he was taking a break from his charcoal and paints, same as each other periodic break he took. After all, a portrait wasn’t the only point of the date—they had swimming and playing with Louis’s guitar, too, not to mention the picnic spread in between them. Having only painting and a conversation muted by concentration, both in the process of painting and in the process of holding a pose, wouldn’t have been satisfying to either of them. Patrick sat up and pushed the fullest platter of cheese and fruits closer to Louis, hoping that the way he leaned over to him made Louis think he was especially attractive in that particular moment. “Is that lace on your collar, Louie?” He asked when his love finally pulled off his vest, leaving them both down only to their undershirts and breeches.

“I was hoping you’d notice,” Louis said, accompanied by a cheeky pose and grin. He laughed and displayed himself without hesitation, making sure Patrick got to see the quality of the linen. “I got this shirt tailored while I was in the capital, I thought you’d absolutely adore it.”

“Oh, I’d love it more if you took it off.” Patrick giggled, figuring Louis would find the provocativity entertaining at the very least, then grabbed a raspberry off the platter, dipped it in cream, and left it between his teeth for a moment before biting down. It was some poor attempt at matching how delightful Louis looked, an attempt made worse by his ever-declining health compared to everyone else he knew. The thought, accompanied by the usual thoughts—that Louis was conscious of how hoarse his voice had become, and how he was constantly starving and dehydrated, and that his lifespan was probably to be cut short to within the year—they all dampened his spirits some, but they had become so usual that he managed to get over himself and keep flirting. “Really, you’re—you’re  _ ravishing _ in it, you lovely boy. Can I see how your painting’s coming along?”

After pushing Patrick away as he crept closer and closer to peeking at the canvas, Louis adjusted his half-moon glasses and pushed a hand through his thick, dark curls. “I’ll show it to you once it’s done, Patrick. It’ll be better as a surprise.” He sounded as if he thought he were an authority on the matter, and held himself like it, too.

Patrick clicked his tongue. “The last surprise I had ended up with me sweltering in my room, bandaging up my arm.”

Louis, who had been pouring himself a cup of wine, stopped the action halfway through the statement, making Patrick think that perhaps he didn’t sound as playful as he was intending when he spoke. As softly as he could without bringing attention to himself, he cursed his poor voice as Louis began to speak. “The differences between your father and I are quite numerous,” He said between gritted teeth. “We ought to deal with him soon, hm? I can’t bear how depressing it is to see what he’s done to you, my love.”

“I really can’t imagine how things will happen if we ever confront him. I can’t have him turn you.”

“Oh, he can’t turn you, either.” His eyes scanned the pattern of the blanket they lay upon, and met Patrick’s gaze with a sigh and an utterly kind smile, neither of which were truly deserved. It was quiet, yet the air felt different than the moments of quiet they took as Louis painted. It felt as if neither of them could do anything; Patrick’s father, for all they tried to deny it, had already altered everything about him, and each time he left the estate he seemed to have broken down more and more, become frailer and more anxious. This was no good thing to think about though, and each of them knew that. “How about I work for another fifteen minutes before we take another break?”

Louis had such an overdone smile on his face that Patrick couldn’t help but laugh. “We could also break for another fifteen minutes, then take another break on top of that break,” He said, muffling his laughter with a sleeve. Louis leaned over and, between giggles, kissed his cheek.

\--

In the monotony of the scene before them, there were a couple things Patrick noticed. The first of which was that, for all his knowledge over how long it would take to dig through the snow, it still felt as if things were taking far too long. The second was that he had become exceptionally exhausted despite not doing anything to help out other than keep his musket raised, and he hadn’t even been doing a good job at that. Perhaps, he thought, he was beginning to fall asleep as he stood there.

“Aye, Patrick, we’ve hit solid ground,” Joe said, which roused Patrick from his state of half-consciousness just enough for him to know that words were being spoken towards him. After no proper response, however, the human stepped to him and pressed a hand against Patrick’s shoulder, which did plenty in actually getting his attention. “Ah, Marquis..?”

He nodded and, noticing Joe’s gaze, felt his cheek to find that tears he didn’t realize were shed had begun freezing on his lifeless skin. “That’s good, Joseph. If you keep up the steady work, I can’t imagine it’ll take longer than twenty minutes more at the very most; it should be resting just below the surface.”

As Joe wordlessly got back to work, Patrick realized that perhaps, his earlier statement was a suggestion for him to actually tell his story, rather than just stand there and think and fall into a slumber. As if the stories he had to tell were the least bit interesting—perhaps they were a snapshot of life the century prior, but the changes and the revolutions that littered the first few years of Joe’s life had barely altered their own town. Had they lived in the capital, there would have been plenty to talk about, but the only major changes Patrick found throughout his life had been a slight change in fashion over a full hundred years and the additions of an icebox and a coal-fueled stove to his kitchen less than a decade prior. None of these thoughts mattered, though, because it had been ten minutes or more since Joe brought it up, and as such it was really far too late for him to say anything of note. Instead, he wiped the tears from his eyes and tried his best to concentrate on not falling asleep.

\--

The painting was quite clearly of the scene at hand, as was expected of him. The skillfully rendered background featured the huge trees that surrounded them as far as they eye could see, lichen and grass grown all the way to the edges of the river, shown calm and perfect. In focus was their clearing, the perfect place of refuge, with their checkered blanket covered in food and bags and their guitar. On it was also Patrick, who was just barely in a different pose than the one Louis kept him in, for Louis had painted himself in as well. It appeared as if they had just pulled away from a kiss, smiling at each other with rosy cheeks and mussed-up hair. “Louis, I… this is really quite touching, hm?” Patrick said, finding it difficult to compose words that expressed his level of gratitude for both the painting and the day as a whole. It didn’t help how perfect the boy was at painting, either, his so-called hobby ending up with a Patrick holding a piece that seemed without fault.

“I’d love for it to become a reality,” Louis said in his perfectly smooth voice, removing the painting from Patrick’s grasp and placing it in the box that he insisted Patrick not look into. “See, since I know you won’t be able to bring these home with you, I was thinking we’d seal the box and bury it, then we can come back on the birthday after we finish dealing with your father and have a proper celebration.”

“Oh, that’s a lovely plan, Louie. How about we get on to the kissing part—you did mention that, right?”

Louis laughed, though his enthusiasm clearly matched Patrick’s own; hesitancy made each of his moves latent, and he couldn’t stop himself from combing his fingers through his still-damp hair. “Really, I did,” He reminded himself, sounding as if he were about to suggest they go swimming again, or do anything aside from making out. Eventually, Patrick couldn’t take it. Louis, though adorable when he acted so flustered, also likely wouldn’t actually end up initiating anything in that state. So, Patrick leaned forward and kissed him, himself.

His lips felt less chapped than usual, tasting sweet and savory, reminiscent of the cheese and fruit and wine and river water. It wasn’t long, in fact, before he got over himself and pushed Patrick onto his back, settling one hand on the back of Patrick’s head and the other on the ground, to keep him at least a bit propped up. Patrick found that one of his own hands wandered its way into Louis’s hair, which was quite nice in terms of bettering their position. For as nice of a kisser as Louis was, after all, he didn’t seem to notice how annoying it was to have their noses rubbing against one another.

As they moved more onto their sides, Louis’s spare hand travelled to Patrick’s waist, tugging the hem of his undershirt out of his breeches. At this point, they weren’t as locked in as they were moments prior, and Louis had stopped kissing at Patrick’s jaw to concentrate on unbuttoning the shirt, which, despite how utterly smart and clever he was, he struggled at doing. Patrick used his spare hand to push Louis’s away and finish the job for him, only to have the same thing happen when he headed to pull off Louis’s shirt.

For whatever reason, the perfect boy started to laugh, giggles uncontrollable as he threw their shirts to the side, seemingly without care. “Oh, my love, my darling, my… my...” As he trailed off, he sat up and grabbed the glass of wine he had earlier set on the box, gazing out into the distance at nothing particular. “When do you think we should stop and head back?” He asked, taking a sip of his wine as if they weren’t in the middle of anything at all.

“What—not now, I’d hope! We’d only just started, had we not?” Patrick sat up and, feeling a sense of embarrassment over his body, grabbed his shirt.

“Yes, but… it’ll be dark come a couple hours, and I don’t want you to get hurt.”

“I…” Patrick had to compose himself, feeling almost as if he’d never be able to organize his cluttered thoughts on the subject. He didn’t want the horrible situation to overtake their conversation again, after all. “I can handle my father being mad at me for, ah, coming home late. Just… I want to keep going, darling, let’s keep going.”

Louis had a lot to consider, since they both knew that Patrick really, truly couldn’t handle the consequences of staying out late, unless they wanted to flee the country that night and never return. “Well,” Louis started, quite visibly weighing his feelings against one another, “I suppose… if you really want to… we can. So long as we’re careful about the time.”

Patrick cheered, letting Louis finish his wine before their lips locked once more, living in fast forward until they got back to approximately the same position they managed to get themselves in before. Louis still tasted perfect and acted perfect, and Patrick felt more than obliged to try to keep up with him. 

\--

As soon as Patrick found himself in a decent place between alertness and unconsciousness, Joe grabbed his arm and pulled him in front of the hole. Inside, of course, was the box, and the human put in the extra effort of digging out the surrounding earth, too. “I know how weakened you are in the cold, but, you know, I won’t be able to pull this out by myself. It’s too far down.”

“Yes, yes. I… suppose I can try to help, Joseph,” He replied, unsure if he’d be able to do much more than get in the way. “How are you planning on doing this?”

“Well, since I cleared out most of the perimeter, I’d bet if we were able to get our hands under it, we’d be able to pull it out just fine. It seems well preserved—is it heavy?”

“Good that it’s preserved. I doubt it’s too heavy, I can’t imagine the contents add up to anything substantial.”

Though it took some time to get a decent grip on the box without either of them taking off their gloves, once they managed to hold onto it, it took only a few moments to pull it onto the snow. Joe picked up his shovel but decided against repacking the dirt and snow, so he gave the shovel to Patrick and picked up the box by himself. They began heading back home, and Patrick promised that, since he did a rather poor job at explaining the box while they were there, he’d take time to tell the stories of the box’s contents once he could sit down beside the heat of his fireplace. Joe laughed and nodded, seeming to be aware that Patrick would get caught up in the moment and would give perhaps a few seconds of explanation, if any at all.

\--

Louis managed to dig a hole for the box and bury it fully before Patrick had even finished pulling his stockings back on, still pitifully out of breath. “My father is certainly going to figure everything out, even if you ride me back and I get there with plenty of time to spare,” He said, sitting in despair over his past actions. He grabbed his waistcoat and let his eyes fixate on Louis; his cheeks began to feel overly hot again, as Louis was absolutely beautiful in everything he did. “People don’t usually get to bed looking this disheveled.”

“Rummage through my bag, darling.” Louis stood up, picked up the bag in question, pulled something out of it, and threw it Patrick’s way. “I’ve got a comb and hand-mirror somewhere in there, if you’d like to fix yourself.”

Patrick found his dismal mood clearing up significantly, to the point where he was nearly laughing. He opened the bag and looked through it, saying, “How egotistical of you. Lucky you’re so handsome, otherwise I’d bet I’d hate you.”

Louis hummed to himself. “If you weren’t so handsome, I might have said that that’s rather shallow of you.” He took the bag back once Patrick found the items in question, and watched with an adoring gaze as Patrick dressed himself. “I think,” He said once Patrick grabbed the comb, “that in order to remember where the box is buried, I’ll carve something on the tree. That way, we can find it, but it won’t bring attention to it unless we know there’s something underneath the tree. And, since we’re discussing this now, we’ll remember for sure.”

Having given up momentarily in taming his messed-up hair, Patrick had gone on to struggling with buttoning up his frock coat. “You’re really smart, Louie, darling,” He said, attention focused more on himself and his coat than on whatever it was that Louis explained. “I’m so fortunate, to have you stay here, instead of you leaving town. You really ought to, by the way, I know you’re more than ready for something bigger than this nothing-town we live in.”

“Oh, Patrick, I’ll never leave. Not until your father’s taken care of,” Louis mused. What he took out of the bag must have been a pocket knife, for that was what he was using to carve the tree. It looked rough from the angle Patrick was viewing it from, but he was sure that it was idyllic up close. “Once we do finish that, I’ll go study medicine at one of the schools in the capital, then I’ll work for the royal court, and I’ll come back as much as possible to see you. Hm, you’ll become Marquis, won’t you?”

“I suppose I will.”

“Frankly, I forgot that you were a nobleman at all. It’s horrific, what’s been done to you, really.”

“I doubt anyone would consider me noble in such a wretched state. Nice of you to remind me that I’ve only lost most of my dignity.” Patrick pulled on his shoes and started back to trying to tidy up his hair. Louis, done with his carving job, headed over and helped him with it.

Once they each looked decent enough to return to their individual manors, they cleaned up after themselves and began to walk back. As they did so, Louis, in some attempt at being more comforting than he knew how to be, especially after the comment that he must have realized sounded a lot like an insult, rubbed Patrick’s lower back. It was still pleasant outside, and while his mood was certainly lower than either of them would have liked, Patrick felt like it was a pretty great day overall.

\--

Patrick was almost surprised at how full the box was, or rather; how its few contents filled up a decent amount of room inside of it. The painting was removed first, and he was immediately entangled by the feelings of the era. Uncertainty mixed up his head, making his already cloudy thoughts nearly impossible to fully decipher. “Your great grandfather, Louis… he was a really quite incredible man,” He said, hating how he shivered as he stood. He helped the canvas above the mantel and decided that, while it was sizeable, it was a bit too small to be hung there, so he sat back down and let Joe admire the graceful brushwork. “We’ll have to find a frame the right size, and hang it up somewhere.”

“I take it you knew him well?” Joe asked. Though it was nearly imperceptible, Patrick thought he saw the boy begin to blush, fiddling nervously with an earring.

“I knew him better than I’ve ever known anyone, Joseph,” He replied. “I forgot how well he painted, shame he only ever saw it as a hobby. Ah, since you’re always curious as to what my life was like when I was still human, I suppose you can stare at it for a while longer. Glean all the details.”

He turned to the rest of the box’s contents. First was a frock coat, which must have been the bulk of the weight aside from the painting. It was a deep crimson with golden thread stitching the prettiest of patterns along its perimeter, and the bottom flared out in a way that, while old-fashioned, Patrick couldn’t help but love. Jewelry littered the bottom, the most expensive of which being a beautiful necklace that had a few diamonds on it, and another necklace had a silver locket, when opened, that had a tiny painting of a single tree on one side and the engraved words of “I love you” on the other. Feeling a lump in his throat form, he set these to the side, and looked to the final few contents, which appeared to be a few envelopes. He took one and then began to head to his office, to find a letter opener.

“Oh, Patrick, look—there’s something written on the back of the canvas,” Joe said. Without so much as giving the vampire a moment to glance over at it, he began to read. “My love, though these times are more unbearable than I could ever imagine, I promise you that, if things ever go wrong, you’ll be remembered by me for the rest of time. Though I fear that something will go wrong, and that our time together is short, I’ll—” Joe’s cheeks turned red and he began to fidget with his earring again. “He was rather, ah, raunchy, hm..?”

Patrick couldn’t help but begin to laugh, despite the sadness that was tugging at him. “Louis was… well, we were kids, Joseph, what more could you expect?” He resisted commenting on how eccentric Joe was otherwise, and how he managed to publish poems that managed to be a million times more provocative than whatever innuendo Louis wrote down. “Perhaps he didn’t have a way with words the way you or I might have, he was the smartest, funniest, most handsome man I’ve ever met. It was… so easy to be with him, even if we were only together when we were the most terrified either of us had been.”

Joe snorted and began to play with his hair, seemingly still flustered. He was adorable, and Patrick sat down beside him to look at the note, himself. “Clearly, it was easy,” Joe said, sitting up, “I can see if there’s a frame the right size in my father’s manor, if you’d like.”

“That’d be good, Joseph, do that. See if you could find his other paintings, too, I’m willing to be many of them are in storage. Your mother—his granddaughter, and perhaps a greater friend of mine than you’ve realized—she would be good to ask, for if I’m not mistaken, she’s kept most of his body of work.”

“Oh, will do, for sure,” Joe said. He turned his attention to the coat, looking at it with such detail that Patrick thought he must have been looking for more notes, unaware that the vampire was holding one of the few letters put inside. Speaking of, he stood up and headed to his office for the letter opener, eager to read whatever he had to say. After all, for the lack of his skill in prose and verse, it was nice to just remember how he sounded, how his lips felt against Patrick's neck. "You know, Marquis, I admit I always thought of you as a bit of a prude," Joe said once Patrick returned. "I mean, like you've never had love, let alone dated my great grandpop? I—I mean—"

"I recognize how funny that may seem, Joseph," He said, finding a decent seat in front of the fireplace. He wiped his eyes, and noticed that his voice had begun to get shakier than before. "I suppose I'm just drawn to pretty boys like you and him."

Joe huffed with laughter, going back to admiring the coat.


End file.
